1.1 — Forget science fiction (3 myths)

💡 Let’s bust three clichés right away:

• “AI thinks like a human.” → No. It computes probabilities over words or pixels.
• “AI understands what it says.” → No. It produces what is plausible, not what is true (hence the errors — see lesson 1.6 on hallucination).
• “AI will become conscious tomorrow.” → Nothing in today’s technology points that way. It’s a topic of debate, not a fact.

Keep these three markers in mind: they’re already enough to talk about AI more accurately than 90% of barroom conversations.

🟢 In plain words — today’s AI doesn’t “understand” and isn’t “conscious”: it’s a probability-calculating machine, very good at producing plausible-sounding output.

✅ In short

• Today’s AI computes probabilities; it doesn’t think like a human.
• It aims for the plausible, not the true — hence its errors.
• Machine “consciousness” is a matter of debate, not of today’s technology.